


The Man With The Lips

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Multi, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These were not sightseeing clips.<br/>(Ariadne borrows Arthur's computer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man With The Lips

It started innocently enough. Ariadne's computer crashed while she was simultaneously downloading lecture slides to study for her final exam and the entire fourth season of _Degrassi_. Needless to say, explaining the reason for her sudden technology-less existence to Cobb was more humiliating than any interaction they had had thus far. Cobb was known for his patience, and his understanding, but halfway through her well-thought-out defense of the serial Canadian drama she could see his eyes glaze over.

She hastened to wrap up. "But that's not important. I backed up my notes on Google docs, so if I could just borrow your computer for a bit…"

Cobb shook his head. "It's, um," he waved his hand vaguely. "You know what, Ariadne, borrow Arthur's. He and I have a meeting in twenty minutes and I don't think he was planning on bringing it." And he wandered off to collect his things.

Ariadne went to join Arthur where he was bent over some plans, pencil clenched between his teeth. "Arthur?"

"Ariadne," he replied tightly around the pencil. His tone was friendly, but he did not look up from his papers.

She decided that repeating the _Degrassi_ spiel would be a mistake, especially given that this was the man who had so sneakily stolen a kiss from her during the Fischer job. Until she finished her degree, Ariadne was Paris-based (although, of course, if someone else was paying she was more than happy to fly somewhere for the weekend on a job), but that didn't mean that she never saw the rest of the team, or that she didn't feel the need to impress them. Cobb was hired for a surprising number of jobs in Western Europe, and Ariadne had taken to sleeping with her cell phone ringer on, and the phone itself on her bedside table. "If I could borrow your laptop while you and Cobb are at your meeting, that would be great. I had some technical difficulties last night and there are notes I have to look at."

"Sure thing." Arthur waved her off vaguely with one hand while the other removed the pencil from his teeth and jotted down a note.

Ariadne walked over to the corner desk where several appliances were plugged in and charging. She couldn't figure out what half of them did, although she did spot Yusuf's electric toothbrush right beside someone's video camera. Recently, Yusuf had taken to spending the night in the warehouse. He was working on a new compound and was laboring under a self-imposed deadline everyone else considered ridiculous. But there it was.

Arthur's computer was easy to spot due to its pristine condition and prime location in front of the only intact rolling chair. (Some people wore out shoes, some people ran their cars into the ground; Eames wore out chairs. He went through them at such an astounding rate, either breaking them by tipping too far back or testing new kick methods or trying to beat his own record in sliding across the warehouse.) Ariadne glanced around before she sat down, just in case anyone had need of the chair, but Cobb and Arthur were packing up and heading out, Eames was still out researching, apparently, and Yusuf was taking a much-needed nap on the cot at the end of the room. Ariadne could just see him over the top of Arthur's computer, and she smiled as he snuffled and rolled over.

The connection here was so much quicker than the one at her apartment in the 15th arrondissement, so Ariadne downloaded her lecture slides and a few of the notes she had begun to make on the layout of the Deutsche Bank. Then she hooked Arthur's computer up to a nearby printer (honestly, what were they doing with all these gadgets—did they think they were the Oceans crew?) and sat back to wait.

After ten minutes had passed and only eight of her forty pages had printed, Ariadne gave up on patience and gave in to curiosity. She thought of her computer with the episodes of this or that TV show, the file of photos she looked good in, and the papers upon papers she had written for class and she decided that if she wanted to learn a little bit more about someone, their computer would be the place to look. If there was one member of the team more mysterious than Cobb, it was Arthur. How convenient.

His word documents were mundane: drafts of letters, lists, all meticulously labeled and catalogued in descriptive folders. Before she opened anything, Ariadne made a mental list of his most recently viewed documents, so that she could reset to it before logging off. This wasn't difficult, since the only mildly interesting thing Ariadne found there was located in the folder marked "School." It was a list (Arthur, Ariadne concluded, was overly fond of lists) of law schools. The London School of Economics, Columbia, NYU, and UCLA had asterisks beside them. He even footnotes his lists, Ariadne marveled, scrolling down to the bottom of the page. Down there, next to another asterisk, was written, "TMWTL may actually visit once and a while."

It was clearly an acronym, but for what? "That Mother Who Talks Loud," Ariadne mused, before realizing she was talking pretty loudly herself. Yusuf shifted on his cot across the room, but she was guessing he was nowhere close to waking up; he had been known to manufacture sleeping pills with built-in timers and test them out on himself. Thus reassured, Ariadne returned to her perusal of Arthur's computer. There were no photos, no videos, nothing else, and she was beginning to feel discouraged (what kind of a guy used the _original_ desktop background?) when her gaze fell on his computer case, resting under the desk, leaning against the wall. She pulled it out, keeping an eye on the still-slumbering Yusuf out of the corner of her eye, and peered inside. Bingo! There, nestled in totally unnecessary bubble wrap, was an external hard drive.

Ariadne took a minute to acknowledge that she had now crossed over from curiosity into snooping, but was too busy doing a very real, albeit seated, victory dance to feel much guilt. It took two seconds to plug the hard drive in and wait for it to show up on the desktop, and then she was clicking furiously to open it and find out Arthur's deepest, darkest secrets.

At first it just looked like more of the same and Ariadne slumped a little in her seat, reading files on travel plans and car types and other trivia a point man needed to know. There were even duplicates of some of the documents found on the computer itself. Leave it to Arthur to back the dullest stuff up, Ariadne thought, and she was about to give up altogether when she spotted the movies folder. There were six files inside, named after different cities. "Honolulu" was the smallest file, so Ariadne clicked on it, first making sure to turn the volume down to a reasonable level. No need to jolt Yusuf out of his well-earned sleep with sightseeing clips.

These were not sightseeing clips. It took Ariadne a while to process what she was seeing and once she had she yelped noiselessly and pushed her chair back and brought her hands up over her mouth. There, in a half-lit hotel room bed, Eames was kissing a line down Arthur's stomach, and Arthur was grabbing his hair and pushing him down, eyes closed, head thrown back. Ariadne flung herself at the computer, hit pause, and then stayed there crouched over the machine, her head in her hands. Her first instinct, of course, was to shut it off, unplug the external hard drive, wait until her pages had been printed, and forget this ever happened. It would be hard looking either Arthur (oh God) or Eames (shit) in the eye ever again, but she'd get over it eventually, and then they could all do their jobs.

Then she paused. If it was going to be awkward anyway… No, no, don't even think about it. She shook her head. But she also peered through her fingers at the screen one more time. As she had hit pause, Eames was grinning up at Arthur, who was staring down at him with a look the likes of which Ariadne would never have thought him capable. It wasn't just desire. It was as if he wanted to be taken apart.

A little more wouldn't hurt. She glanced at the printer. Fifteen pages left. Ariadne reached again into Arthur's computer case and rooted around for a while until she came up with headphones. She plugged them in, put them on and, with an inward prayer, pressed play.

The first thing she noticed was that the sound quality on these headphones was quite something, far better than her fraying ear buds. She tried to ease into the experience, focusing first on little things like the room. Her first impression was right: definitely a hotel room. It was not nighttime as she'd assumed, however, but day. The dimness came because the curtains were pulled closed so that only a slit of light shone through. They had probably propped the video camera or whatever it was on the second bed, stacking up phone books or suitcases or something for it to rest on so that it could take in the entire scene.

And what a scene. She couldn't keep ignoring it forever, especially not with these super-precise headphones on, and certainly not while Arthur was making that noise. Ariadne watched as Eames, his mouth on Arthur's cock, reached underneath and (Ariadne's eyes widened) slipped first one, then two fingers inside Arthur. Arthur groaned and lifted his hips off the bed to give Eames better access.

Then the phone rang. Ariadne jumped and ripped off the headphones and scrambled in her pocket for her own phone, but the sound had stopped. On the screen, Eames was sitting up, reclaiming his fingers, and Arthur was scrambling, still hard, for his phone on the nightstand. Ariadne put the headphones back on in time to hear Arthur answer, "Yes, yes, I'll be right there." Then he hung up and turned to Eames. "Cobb's heard back. He needs us downstairs." He glanced at the camera. "Switch that thing off."

Eames got up, grumbling. "Fucking hell, darling." He reached behind the camera. "Next time we really must—" The clip was over.

Not stopping to think twice, Ariadne closed that file and clicked on the next one, "Stockholm."

At first she thought the computer was malfunctioning—where Ariadne had expected to see a picture there was nothing but darkness—but eventually she realized that the lens cap must have still been on the camera. It was most definitely filming something; she could hear heavy breathing and the occasional breathless endearment. It had always been the case with Ariadne that the images her imagination could conjure up were often better than reality—that was why Cobb had hired her, after all—so she rested her head against the back of the chair, slouching slightly and allowing her eyes to close, imagining.

Imagining: Arthur and Eames kissing, Arthur and Eames falling onto a wide, Swedish bed, probably bought from IKEA, and tangling up the bedspread with their movements. Arthur and Eames undressing each other hurriedly, swearing and laughing as things get stuck and kissing some more when no words would do. Arthur and Eames, hands on each other's cocks, breathing heavily into each other's mouths. Arthur finally thinking to hell with it and rolling over. Eames getting that look in his eye and pulling on a condom and lubing it up and…

Ariadne opened her eyes. The clip had ended, and she was left with an incomplete fantasy, forced to acknowledge finally how turned-on she was. Another glance at Yusuf, who still slept on across the room, and then she was clicking on the next clip with one hand, the other wriggling down the front of her jeans.

In Sydney, Arthur was on top, with Eames a quivering puddle of Briticisms, bent almost in half, his legs over Arthur's shoulders, straining against him. Ariadne decided that her fingers were no good and grabbed for the newly charged electric toothbrush, turning it on and holding the base against herself through her jeans.

"Is that all you've got?" Eames was saying. Arthur pressed his toes into the mattress and thrust harder. Ariadne moved both hands to the toothbrush and started moving it in little circles. "That's it," Eames panted. "That's it."

"So," Arthur managed between thrusts, "what do you say now?"

"What?" Eames asked faintly, his head tilted back, his arms braced against the headboard.

Arthur started kissing his neck. "Do you take it back?"

"Do I take back," Eames breathed, "what?"

"Everything," Arthur reached down to grab Eames' cock, "about me being," he planted the other hand alongside Eames' on the headboard, "dull?"

"Ah," said Eames, low in his throat.

"Well?" Arthur was speeding up a bit. His hand on Eames was blocked from Ariadne's few, but she could tell by the look on Eames' face and by the twisting motion of his upper arm, that he was doing something right. She started bringing her hips up and down against the toothbrush.

"Well…"

"Well?"

"Ngh."

"Well?"

"Oh fuck." That was Ariadne, out loud, as close as she'd ever been.

On the screen, Eames had let go of the headboard and had his arms around Arthur's back. Arthur leaned in and whispered something in Eames' ear, something the camera microphone couldn't pick up, and then Eames went off, his smile turning into a grimace as he pressed his face into Arthur and breathed open-mouthed against him. Ariadne came too (legs shaking, sliding down further on the chair, gripping the toothbrush and holding it to herself all the way), and then Arthur (gritting his teeth and swearing, flopping down on Eames), and then they all lay there and panted, with time and miles between them.

When she recovered enough to hear anything besides the pounding of her heart in her ears, Ariadne pulled off the headphones and noticed two things. One: her printing was done, probably long done. Two: the ancient freight elevator at the end of the floor was grinding to life. As quick as she could, Ariadne shut everything down, ejecting the hard drive and pulling out the headphones and tucking them back in the computer case, more or less as she'd found them. She replaced the computer case under the desk, closed Arthur's computer, and seized her printing. She was settling in to her (wheel-less) chair by her latest model, lecture slides in hand, when the elevator ground to a halt and Eames emerged.

Ariadne couldn't help but stare. Luckily, Eames affixed his own interpretation and glanced down at his tie. "Not you too," he said. "So I got a touch of garlic sauce on it. You can hardly tell." He glanced around. "Where is everyone?"

Ariadne set her papers down by her model and stood up. "Cobb and, um, Arthur are meeting with a client and Yusuf's asleep."

"Again?" Eames rolled his eyes. "And what've you been up to my lovely? Exams, is it?"

"Yes. I've been studying. Hard."

Eames shook his head. "Take my word for it. With skills like yours, higher education's a waste. If you need something," he snapped his fingers, "take it."

"And what have you taken?" Ariadne asked.

"Nice try," said Eames, "but my lips, as they say, are sealed." And he ran a finger over them to illustrate his point.

Ariadne's eyes widened.

"I'm a man with a plan," said Eames, walking off to steal Arthur's chair.

No, Ariadne thought, you're The Man With The Lips.


End file.
